March 8, 2020: Truth Revealed
March 8, 2020 Rev. Rhonda Blevins, DMIN
Truth Revealed
John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
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Remember when you were in your mother’s womb, how comfortable you were? How cozy you were? How warm you were? How you were never hungry? How you slept when you wanted to sleep? How you never felt alone? How you never wanted for anything? Yeah, me neither. I wonder why we can’t remember life in the womb, a common experience of all humans.
Nikki Walton shared a story with me about two babies together in their mother’s womb:
One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”
The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, you can hear her heartbeat, and sometimes you can even hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
Do believe in life after birth? According to our scripture text today, Jesus believed in life after RE-birth.
To recap the story, the powerful and probably wealthy Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness seeking something, we’re not quite sure what. But it isn’t comfortable for him and he certainly doesn’t want to be discovered talking to Jesus. Jesus tells him, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus doesn’t get this at all. “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus seems frustrated that Nic doesn’t get it, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?”
Nic didn’t get the “born again” metaphor. But before we’re too hard on Nicodemus, I want to suggest that most people still don’t get the metaphor.
Much of Christianity has reduced the gospel to one verse from our pericope, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It’s a lovely verse. Billy Graham shared this verse time and again as he preached around the world. An obscure football player you’ve probably never heard of . . . Tim Tebow . . . used to print “John 3:16” in the black stuff under his eyes when he played for the University of Florida.
And then when Tebow went into the big leagues and led the Denver Broncos in a 29-23 overtime victory over the Pittsburg Steelers in a playoff game, folks were fascinated by some of the stats he put up:
· You know how many yards he passed against the Steelers? 316, like John 3:16.
· Tebow set an NFL playoff record with yards per completion. You know how many? 31.6, like John 3:16.
Some folks who believe in Tebow and Jesus find those stats more than coincidental. But some people over the years have thought Tebow to be too pushy about his faith.
This passage from John 3 might elicit similar reactions—if you love how bold Tebow is with sharing his faith, you likely love this familiar passage and its “born again” language. If you find Tebow’s faith-sharing off-putting, my guess is this “born again” language might make you squirm a bit. Like the person who recently said to me, “I’m a devout Christian but I don’t want anything to do with that ‘born again’ stuff.” To that person, the “born again” language elicits thoughts of the pushy, judgmental, mean-spirited evangelist/street preacher who is happy to believe that everyone who doesn’t see things his way is destined to an eternal pit of fire.
So what did Jesus mean when he told Nicodemus that “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
First, let’s explore what Jesus didn’t mean.
My first point here deals with the “kingdom of God” language Jesus uses (“no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above”). This “kingdom of God” language often makes us think of the afterlife—of heaven. But in the Gospel of John, and in some instances in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus hints that the “kingdom of God” can be realized here, in this present life. In fact, in Luke 17:21, Jesus does more than hint when he says that the “kingdom of God is in your midst” or the King James Version, “the kingdom of God is within you.” This conversation is not just about the afterlife—it’s about this present life as well. That’s the first misconception about this passage.
The second thing we miss in this passage has to do with translation. Most of the New Testament was originally written in Greek, and when translators try to put it into English, there’s inevitably a loss of meaning and/or nuance. In this passage, the word in question is, in English, “again,” as in (KJV) “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The NRSV we read earlier probably gets us closer to the original meaning, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” So is it “born again” or “born from above?” Well, it could be either. It could also be “born from a higher place.” It’s the translator’s choice.
If I were translating this passage for contemporary Americans, here’s how I would translate it: “no one can perceive the realm of God without being born from a higher place.”
That’s a far cry from, “Be born again or spend eternity in hell!” don’t you think?
Then skipping ahead again to John 3:16. If too much has been made of John 3:16, perhaps too little has been made of John 3:17
John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 3:17: Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through hi
Jesus came not to condemn. Period. End of story. But so many Christians hold up “belief in Jesus” as a litmus test with believers going to heaven and non-believers going to a fiery pit for eternity. I believed that for a long time. Then as I kept reading my Bible, and I kept learning more about Jesus, and reflecting on the “God so loved” part—the thought of God condemning billions of people to eternal torment—it became unpalatable. Think about it:
There are 7.7 billion people in the world today, 2.2 billion of which are Christian. That leaves 5.5 billion people alive today who some Christians believe will spend eternity tormented in a fiery hell—and that God is the one who set up this system. I’ll say this as strongly as I know how to say it—if that’s what God is like, I want nothing to do with God. (Spoiler alert: that’s not what God is like.)
In his conversation with Nicodemus that day, Jesus revealed deep truth about the nature of God and God’s son—that it wasn’t about condemnation—it was all about salvation. The Greek word we translate as “saved” is sózó—meaning to make well, to make whole, to rescue. The truth revealed is that there is no condemnation. But you can’t perceive that unless you’ve been born from a higher place. If I were translating John 3:17 for contemporary Americans, it would go like this, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be made whole through him.”
Think back to the story of the twins in their mother’s womb—one believed in the Mother, the other did not. Belief or lack thereof did not change the fact that both twins were held in their mother’s womb. One could perceive truth, the other could not. Perception had no bearing on reality. And the reality, the truth is this: to be born again is to perceive the truth that all people are swimming in the amniotic fluid of God’s kingdom. If that truth makes you uncomfortable, that’s understandable. Ask any baby how comfortable the birth canal was! Truth often lives just outside the boundary of comfort.
So my friends, be born again! Awaken to the truth of God’s presence all around, and the truth of God’s salvation for—let’s see what the Bible says here—ah! The world! Not just the Jews. Not just the Christians. “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Good news for all!